Lesser Cleric Ulst Rekaa - An Eruption Most Foul

[+ Yalu]

I am always in awe of @Karrod Niac's character work, worldbuilding, and knack for picking up breadcrumbs from throughout a mission and tying them together.  Here, we got all three.  Cracking sim, Brian.

 

((Village Centre near The Barn, Yanthi Village))

Lower Cleric Ulst Rekaa had been greatly troubled of late and had not felt the warmth of the Ember as she had in days gone past.  Ever since the thunderous calamity outside the Emberhearth some weeks earlier and the sudden invasion of the injured strangers, something had disquieted her to the point of intense distraction.  She'd twice lost her place during the daily litany and the Upper Cleric had spoken of their surprise and disappointment with her waning attention to her duties but she could not purify her mind.  To make matters worse rumors, the ever present currency of the city, were swirling around numerous strange events and odd sightings.  Strangers moving through the nights, figures skulking by windows and on roof tops, odd questions being asked by even odder people.  Ulst sat in the center of this maelstrom of rumor and gossip and with each new tidbit, her memory turned back to the foreign strangers.  

After yet another sleepless night and a desperate prostration before the Ember, she turned to the skraats of the Morality Patrol.  She had gone to them and they had heard truth in her tale of potentially dangerous foreign strangers.  Now, flanked by two of the stoutest patrollers and wearing an expression she reserved for those fallen from the Flame she found herself confronting those very same strangers, slithering their way towards a large barn.  The patrollers hailed the strangers with pious authority that brought them to an immediate and fearful halt.  

Arcah: Rekaa, are these the ones you encountered?
 
Ulst looked from one ashen face to the other most carefully, remembering well the strangeness of each.  Though they looked like many in the city there was an unnatural quality to them which made her flinch away if she stared too long into their eyes.  
 
Rekaa: Yes, I swear it by the Ember.  
 
Arcah: And do you think they are the ones bringing change to our world? ::she pursed her lips:: Think… carefully… before you answer.
 
Ulst hesitated, the weight of the moment apparent.  She knew strangeness abounded in Yanthi and something was threatening the good people of the city and could not shake the sense that somehow, these odd folk were involved.  But yet, she had nothing but that vague disquieted sense.  Doubt manifested where she had been so confident earlier.  

Rekaa: ....I'm...I'm not certain they bring the change...but they are of a strangeness beyond any I've known.  By the Ember, I swear there is something heretical about them.  

There was a terrible moment as the skraats considered her words and evaluated the strangers for themselves.  
 
Arcah: Well then… ::she turned to mass behind her:: Seize them!
 
Gnaxac: Uh-oh…

Nicholotti: Lieutenant!

Jolara/Tiberius: response

What happened next was a horror beyond any she'd ever imagined before and Ulst stood stunned as the entirety of the Patrol was struck low around her.  The violence was so swift, so savage, and of a kind beyond any knowing.  The woman who had claimed divinity, who herself had Embraced the Ember with Ulst's guidance, had used those same sanctified hands to assail men twice her size in moments.  But that was far from the worst of it.  

The strangers called forth the very spirit of Fire to aid them in their dark designs.  

Crimson bolts lashed out, tumbling men to the ground as if they'd been poleaxed, strange burns on their clothes and skin already mottling.  Ulst fell to her knees and wailed for salvation from the impossibly supernatural.  

Sherlock: Threats clear! Everyone alright?

Gnaxac: ::with a shaky grin:: S-s-s-smashing.

Jolara/Tiberius: Responses?

Ulst rocked back and forth on her knees, in shock and terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.  The wraiths she had angered hadn't seen fit to let her pass mercifully with the others and instead turned their hungry attention towards her.  Their eyes shone with a horrible glint and Ulst could not believe she had ever been tricked into thinking these things were merely lost strangers.

Nicholotti: Look, we are not what you're thinking. If you trust the Ember, have faith...

With a combination of terror and furious instinct driving her Ulst swung her arm and slapped the woman full in the face as hard as her frail arm could.

Rekaa: Daemons!  Heretics!  Murderers!  Strike me dead but I will not hear your foul tongue speak of the Sanctified Ember when you have wrought such horrors this night!  

The woman, or whatever it was that wore the skin of a woman, recoiled from the blow and looked to the carnage they had wrought.  When her face turned back it seemed...apologetic, as if the casual slaughter were a trivial affair barely worth notice.  Ulst felt a deep coldness within her very soul.  

Nicholotti: They are just asleep. They will wake up soon with nothing more than a headache.

Ulst hissed and spat.  

Rekaa: You lie!  I saw you call upon elemental fire to strike them dead!  Ty'sen ::Ulst nodded to the largest of the skraats just a few hands to her side::  was a champion brawler before he embraced the Ember!  He was never once felled by an opponent and you did so in moments!  Why!?  Why have you brought this evil down upon us?  Do we not suffer enough?!

Ulst's terror was growing into something approaching hysteria.  She tried to recite the litany of the Ember but the words would not come.  

Sherlock: It's true. We're not here to hurt anyone. In fact, Cleric, I think we all have the same goal.

Gnaxac: ::curiously:: W-w-we do? ::then he cottoned on, and nodded enthusiastically:: We do!

Jolara/Tiberius: Responses?

The absurdity of their words combined with the sickening terror and Ulst heard herself laughing before she even realized she was doing it.  It was a sick, hysterical chitter.  Some lucid part of her mind wondered if she was going mad.  

Rekaa: What?  How could you possibly confuse your foul designs with my duties.  I serve the people...the same you so blithely assault for reasons beyond my ken.  

Sherlock: It's clear you know there are some on your planet that come from other worlds. We come from another world. The difference between us and them is we came here to stop them. We came here to help you.

The words collided with her like a great wave and Ulst was left thunderstruck, uncertain of how to respond.  She have never conceived that there was anything beyond the stone and soil beneath her feet.  To learn, so abruptly, that all she knew was nothing came as something of a shock.  She looked at the woman speaking, tried to mouth words, found none, and vomited.  

Several times.  

It was a few retching minutes before she pulled herself together but somehow the act had made her feel better.  Looking at the state of the woman's clothing who had spoken to her, Ulst felt suddenly embarrassed and apologetic.

Rekaa: Sorry...about your cloak...you may be daemons...but none deserve spew upon them.  

Ulst rocked back from her knees and sat on the cold stone, curling into as small a figure as she could.  Her voice became small.  

Rekaa:  Worlds?  Daemon invaders here among us?  Has the frost taken my senses and cursed me to madness?  

Gnaxac: H-h-hard to believe as that is with a bunch of unc-c-c-conscious people around you, I know.

Nicholotti/Sherlock/Jolara/Tiberius: Response

Rekaa: I can't...how...you're not of Demes?  Not of our people?  But you look...sound...I don't understand....::Ulst shook her head and sighed deeply.::  I don't understand anything anymore.  Ember protect me, I am lost in the wilderness without flame.  

Gnaxac: W-w-what can we do to convince you?

Nicholotti/Sherlock/Jolara/Tiberius: Response

Ulst looked to each, trying to find the sure and certain signs of deception but found none.  Whatever these things were they could've had her dead or worse a dozen times over already and, considering the foul smelling state of one's cloak, had reason enough.  But yet they seemed concerned for her.  Their words were strange but their voices were calm and full of patience.  

Rekaa: Your names.  Your true names.  Not these...figments you shroud yourselves with.  I would know at least the names of those who had damned me so.  

Nicholotti/Sherlock/Jolara/Tiberius: Response

Ulst nodded and tried to compose herself fractionally.  Some of the litany was reforming in her mind and the heat in her breast was returning slowly.  

Rekaa:  You claim to serve this world...that you wish to help...how?  Is that what you brought you to this place?  

She pointed a shaky finger towards the barn.  

Nicholotti/Sherlock/Jolara/Tiberius: Response

Rekaa:  I am a servant of the Ember so long as I draw breath.  If there is a taint of evil here I will see it gone...whatever shape it takes.  I will follow and judge your divinity for myself.  

Nicholotti/Sherlock/Jolara/Tiberius: Response

Tags/TBC!

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Ulst Rekaa
Lesser Cleric of the Yanthi Emberhearth
V239509GT0